A Work in Progress
by Sudonim
Summary: There was once a time when Jeff Hardy and CM Punk had a good thing. They had chemistry. They had a work.
1. Chapter 1

"Phil"

He says it to an empty room. It echoes in his head, hollow, dull, plaintive. He feels it ring dim against his temples and into his eye sockets. He doesn't remember crying, but the tightness in his sinuses tells him he's got something stopped up in the works, something very displeased with his current cold, ceramic mattress.

He's on the floor again. Again. This must be the third time this week. Third? Yes, three. Two trips out, a club and a very, very dirty bar, a girl with pierced nipples...Oh, four. There was a forth in there, an after party. When was that again?

No, that was last week. This is Sunday. Raw is tomorrow night.

He scoffs. When did that matter? It feels like ages ago now.

Scoffing makes his head rise imperceptibly from the floor, but the exhalation brings his temple back to the cold tiles of the bathroom floor.

Fuck. That hurts like a mother-bitch.

Two hands press hard into the floor, palms boiling against the icy white slick of the bathroom floor. He feels reassurance as his arms flex and lift him slowly, almost as if he's planking, straight off the floor. His knees buckle and crack against the hard surface, but he's glad for the pain. It balances him, brings him back a little more, negates the throbbing tumble in his gutt and his mind.

Where is this?

He steadies himself against a plain white vanity, a floating mass of marble or mica or some sort of very fancy, who-gives-a-damn 'm' composite that must be worth something, because it can bear his weight as he leans his body into its seemingly floating mass.

There's a toilet to his left. Thank God for small miracles. It's there, he's there, and nobody seems to have missed it during the night, so no matter how messed up he's been, he at least was a tidy house guest. Floor guest. Whatever.

He lurches upward, his head swims and he barely is able to twist like a disgruntled, constapated ballerina before crashing back down. Score. Good aim, Nero. Good on ya and all that.

Fuck, someone is knocking.

Tapping, really. It's an apologetic sound, gentle but insistant, a little tempermental. There's no urgency, but he knows it's a nosey, annoyed rap. It just has that /tone/ to it.

"Jussa minute," he slurs, not meaning to. Damn, what the hell did he have? Seriously, what the hell did he drink? He remembers a very, very sexy pair of tits, a tight white shirt, two shots, three, maybe five...

"Can you get the hell out of my bathroom?"

Shit. He could just shit himself. Just-

Wait, nevermind. Inappropriate bathroom humor only makes sense when he's not already there. But really, honestly, really? C'mon God, he thinks, what're you playing at? Did I really do something that awful? I didn't sleep with a nun. I didn't fuck a priest. I mean, not that I know of. And hell, if that's how everyone at the monastery gives head, then damn, You must be pretty fucking selfish to keep all that for yourself, but I feel You, man-

"Jeff."

Fuck. So Phil's feeling self-righteous. Wait, no, Phil just feels like PHIL. Fuck that noise. Fuck him, fuck his straight-edge bullshit. Fuck his vindictive, prissy little vendetas. What the fuck does he have going on that's such hot shit, anyway? A title he couldn't keep? A rivalry that leaves him totally one-sided? At least when it was him and Punk, there was tension. There was chemistry. They had something, something the fans ate up by the fistfulls. It was a real work, what they had going, and it was fucking brilliant, until Punk went and fucking ruined it-

"Jeff, seriously. Are you okay, man?"

He rolls his eyes. Thanks, mom, but I'm abso-fucking-lutely fine. Except for what seems to apparently be a bloody nose, and isn't that weird and unexpected, now that he notices the trail of dried blood leading from his left nostril, across the peak and crease of his lips and down past his jaw line. When did he get punched in the face...?

"Yeah."

Damn. That's a croak if ever there was one. His throat is raw, he notices, as if he's been trapped in a desert for days. It burns a little as he swallows, an out of place sensation of thickness, or fullness, he can't quite clear from his throat.

"I'm okay. I'm cool. I'm fine."

"You sure? You need anything?"

"Nah, I'm...good. Cool. I'm fine."

"Okay, because that's a lot of adjectives and not a lot of explanation. You sure you're alright?"

"Phillip," he says, suddenly finding his hips are quite good at pivoting his spine but not the best form of support suddenly. He sways, grabbing at that ridiculous floating-sink thing and scrabbling across the top surface. It's too broad at its face. His fingers can't wrap around it in any way that provide purchase. and now his bile is rising, like a tsunami of a week's worth of low tides. He supresses a belch and steadies himself, grasping at his faculties like bloody straw through outstretched fingers.

Blood? His nose. Right.

"Phillip," he repeats, "I don't fucking know." 


	2. Chapter 2

Phillip. Who the hell calls him Phillip?

A feverish, concussed former coworker, apparently. Head trauma and what seems to be the most interesting case of lemming disease ever have culminated in the hot mess lying sprawled on his bed. He dabs at Jeff's head with a cold washcloth as he hits send on yet another text to Amy reassuring her that, yes, Jeff is very ill, but no, he doesn't need her here.

It's been awhile since he needed her here, or that she offered, but it's nice to hear sometimes. Not really welcome right now, part of his brain niggles, but that's more out of general annoyance at losing out on so much sleep.

He was out at a club, minding his own business, as much as someone with a pro wrestling career can. But, still, minding his own business and enjoying the music, relishing the dancing, having a nice cold drink after what had turned out to be a very stereotypical, if not disappointing, Monday night match.

The club wasn't helping.

There was a raised platform in the center of the floor obviously intended for a gogo dancer of some sort. With it being a Monday night and a podunk little town and all, the stage had largely been vacant, save for some reticent if not well-lubricated women clutching half-empty drinks hopping half-heartedly onto the dais before falling off to the raucous laughter of their own devising, chorused by various voices and some friendly clamoring.

And then fucking Austin Aries showed his face.

Swinging like a monkey and making enough of a mess of himself to incite a veritable troupe of locals, it's all he could do not to put the guy down on his own. Sure, there was no provocation there, and yes he had no personal beef with Daniel to speak of, but fuck him if TNA was suddenly going to break his flow. Not when he was just starting to mellow, just starting to find his center, just starting to cool down after what he hoped would not turn into another absolutely maniacal week of fuck-yeah-Cena tweets.

He didn't have anything personal against Dan at all. In fact, he really respected the guy. He did good work, and though they'd never interacted on a personal level, it was the likelihood of the company he kept that made something cold and angry and sick and tired, so tired and wasted and sad, well up suddenly to throat-check Phil in a way that made his ears ring.

That hair. It glowed iridescent in the black lights, that streak of blond like an obnoxious torch shining in the bleak pit of mediocrity he'd found himself in tonight, just letting himself drop like a stone into the depths of facelessness this venue had to offer. In classic style, while he'd done everything he could within reason to turn down his appearance, Hardy never seemed to differentiate between work and the world. It was shit like this that worked him up so much. It was the reason Vince had pinned them together in the first place, and that was a wound that wound even deeper, knowing the kind of vindictive people he dealt with every day. And people just /bought it/...

Their eyes met, not in one of those cheesy across-the-dance-floor, Lifetime-Movie-Network kind of ways. It was like that dull throb in his throat and his head was suddenly getting jacked up to 9,000 and the room was getting muted and bright and space seemed to shift and he's moving-

No, Hardy was coming right at him. Like a deer caught in the headlights, he just stands there as Hardy's closing on him with the look of a hungry jackal on his face, the thumping of the bass coming to him almost as if he's underwater, punctuating the approach. He's leaning against an exposed beam wrapped in cheap overstock carpeting, probably as some pretense between comfort and fire codes, and he assumes that uncomfortable twinge running up and down the length of his spine is just the rough fibers grinding against his shirt. But he doesn't move, no more than to shift his shoulders so slightly and square his collarbone against the oncoming altercation, ignoring Austin's newly-amassed yelping, yapping passel of bitches for the moment.

"You having fun?" Hardy said over the music, leaning one-armed, cocky against the textured beam behind him. He could just smash him in the inside of the elbow, a jab to the armpit, get a kick on any of his ribs-

"What the fuck do you think?"

He had a brief moment to chastise himself - was that really the best he had right now? But he looked up and saw Hardy wasn't actually looking at him at all. In fact, he was fairly fixated on the dance floor, his face somewhere between unreasonably placid and exceptionally homicidal, as if he'd been goaded into a trap. He turned and followed the gaze, but in his estimation, it's only a group of poorly-restrained drunkards, a few underage girls in push-up bras, an older guy with a fanny pack, maybe the guy in the far corner with the over-long trench coat, some groupies and random personalities from one or both shows... Nothing unusual. Nobody he recognizes, at least, as being particularly inciting or obtuse.

"You wanna get outta here?"

It took him a second to realize, as he turned back, that Jeff was directing this question at him. He's somewhat taken aback; where did this sudden familiarity come from? And why the sudden swap in social guises? A moment ago he looked ready to tear out someone's throat with a slightly-sharpened plastic spoon, and now he s broken into a cocked smile, almost a leer in Punk s estimation. He shook his head in disbelief as he pushed off the wall and started aimlessly into the bar section of the club, trying to put some distance between himself and...whatever Hardy was doing.

"Punk," Jeff started to say, but he knew Jeff was behind him, and he twisted as he felt a hand come down on his shoulder, grabbing the wrist, turning the arm sideways, applying pressure to the back of the elbow and pushing downward. He crouched on one knee, driving Jeff down to the floor, and for a blissful moment he feels that anger subside as that all-too-familiar sensation of winning finally finds its way back into his skin. He was flushed with it-

Actually, he realized, he was breathing hard. He actually /was/ flushed. And Jeff was very calmly, almost understandingly, kneeling with his arm twisted awkwardly to the side and his body turned away, but in a way that said Punk really was not hurting him. He turned his head to throw Punk a cock-sure smile over his shoulder.

"You better break that or get the fuck off me," Jeff said, but there's a warning in that smile, something gangrenous and over-sweet. Punk snapped his hands back, almost throwing Hardy's arm away from him as he sat back on his heels, palms open like he's got on a gun on him, and popped to his feet.

He was still like that when Jeff stood uncertainly, a non-confrontational look on his face to match the unsettling sneer Hardy's wearing.

"You can put your hands down," Hardy chided, but even as he said it, his face began to fall, his eyes moving past Punk's face and over his shoulder, back toward the dance floor.

And that's when everything started to turn.


	3. Chapter 3

What the hell had he been thinking?

Everything had been going great. Perfect, awesome, fan-fucking-tastic. He'd been getting clean, right? Remember that, Jeffy? Sober and straight and working shit out. Wasn't that fun for a few months? Things were all shiny and happy and people were giving him the respect he wanted. It felt good. On the outside, it all felt great, honestly.

There was still that part of him underneath that ached, though, the part that wanted to ruin everything for the hell of it. It wanted to blast his brains into infamy and giddy, sappy weed-scented putty. It wanted to smash him down into that silky black pit of booze where he couldn't quite breathe right anymore. He wanted his pulse to pound, his ears to ring. It weighed him down and made his tongue feel heavy when it crept up on him, like it did all at once without warning, telling him what he knew he couldn't, shouldn't, would never do anymore.

But Brooke was beautiful in that tight white top. The lines of her, hyper-accentuated in a way that likened each curve to pleasantly impossible perfection. They'd done shots at the first bar, the heat of the room pressing in on them and pushing them together with the sealing seer of salacious synthesizers and thudding into his heart like a heavy fist. It had been so long since he'd had a drink that he could barely feel his lips after the second one.

Damn it all, when did he become a lightweight?

The thought was funny to him, so much so that he coughed up a chuckle, a diseased sound that carried more spite than mirth. The sheets under him where hotel-fresh, hotel-weave, hotel-cold-and-soaked-with-sweat. They were not, however, the color of the bedding in the room where he was staying.

He had done something very bad last night. Worse than fondling his boss's newlywed daughter in an oppressively grungy bar in full view of her husband, a man who'd likely be scheduled to take his title after this. No, it was the second bar. That was what did him in.

"Jeff."

Hearing Punk's voice makes the memories quicken.

It was strange, walking the uncounted blocks between venues with a gangling pack of people he forcibly labeled as friends, the clinging weight of would-be snow a slick on his windbreaker. He'd been curling into himself recently, fighting back the desire to indulge but every day sinking back toward his habits a little more. The pressure of success was just as bad as the weight of failure, but somehow the urge to purposely fuck it up made that awful voice in his head cackle and leap like the flames he put to his effigies, and there were more and more of those these days, it seemed.

There is a palm on his brow, then the back of a hand testing the warmth of his cheek, knuckles dragging gently against the soft skin of a jowl.

He just felt strange.

There were no memories of entering the bar, though he pushed his brain and clawed at the cloying darkness for a shred of light. Nothing shone in his mind's eye but the scrabbling, cold night of the street being sucked from his lungs as more stale barroom air crept in to replace it. The sensation was there, but no idea of why, or how, until he remembered standing face to face with Punk.

"I'm pretty certain Mark's about to kill me."

They were his words, but he couldn't feel his mouth make them, nor did he know where exactly they'd come from. He felt wedged into the back of his head, his face projecting about ten inches away from him as his consciousness clung to the inside of his skull. In the slow-motion elasticity of his inebriation, for a moment it seemed like Punk was nodding at him, but the assentment continued past the regular bob of the head, into a bow, then a lunge, and as arms flung out past his midriff, a shoulder impacted his sternum, the force of Punk rushing against him sped up time until it seemed to excel the normal pace of reality.

They crashed into the far wall, his back slamming against the concrete surface and bouncing just slightly, the back of his head making a wet, sick crack as his neck failed to catch the blow. He cried out shallowly, cinched his eyes shut, slid down the wall until his ass struck cold, sticky floor, knees pulled up to a right angle before one flopped flat on the floor. He stayed like that for an indeterminate amount of time, voices and lights flashing around in his head like an egg whisked too hard with a sharp-tined spork - not everything could come through the filter, and what did was jagged and fractal.

For a brief moment, he saw house lights raised, voices peak, a tattooed man with spiked, brown hair in a tight white shirt kneeling in front of him, half turned, screaming at a big man with a baseball bat. There was a hand on his chest, over his heart. It beat so hard and leapt so high, crashing against his ribs, aching to burn the entirety of him to the ground. It felt like Punk was trying to hold it in his chest, protecting that last part of him as Mark LoMonaco towered over them and threatened to become the next Barry Bonds.

Yup, Mark definitely wanted to fucking kill him.


End file.
